Liturgy Of The Hours

[puellapaschalis]

​what do you mean, and cram the whole office into that gap? not sure I understand what you are saying
My question was, how does a layperson or priest fit in the entire 62 office AND rosary AND daily mass AND other forms of prayer and spiritual reading with a full time job? do they not sleep? matins takes me like 40 minutes alone, sometimes longer if it is one of 3 nocturns. how do priest do it?

​I've had periods when I could pray the monastic diurnal (so no Matins) with daily Mass occasionally. It became quite a quiet, withdrawn life, but it was very hard to get everything done.

However, the diurnale/breviarium romanum - mandated for clergy before the reforms and in use in 1962 - was itself the product of a reform of the Roman breviary in (I think) the early 20thC. The scheme of psalms is different than that laid down by St. Benedict. The Compline psalms changed each day and an extra psalm was added to Vespers. This lightened the load of Matins somewhat.

Historically it was astonishingly rare that a lay person could manage the whole one-week breviary (or even the diurnal!) alongside the obligations of secular life. Hence the concept of the Rosary as the 'poor man's psalter' - 150 Aves corresponding to 150 psalms - and the development of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, which preserves the structure of the Breviary but greatly pared down.

I was, I think, against this backdrop that the post-Vatican II reformers made their changes. They (or was it Sacrosanctum Concilium itself? The difference is important!) wanted to 'open up' the possibility of praying the Breviary to lay people. In switching to a four-week psalter this was certainly achieved, but in my view it is debatable whether what was discarded, particularly the age-old pattern of the one-week psalter, was worth it, particularly when the Rosary and Little Office were already extant and in use.

[John Paul]

Does Oremus mean she needs to pray the office all in one gap of time.

[The Historian]

​There is a huge difference between the 1962 office and the revised modern office. the old one says the same number of psalms in *one week* as the new one does in *a month*.

how does a layperson or priest fit in the entire 62 office AND rosary AND daily mass AND other forms of prayer and spiritual reading with a full time job? do they not sleep? matins takes me like 40 minutes alone, sometimes longer if it is one of 3 nocturns. how do priest do it?

 

 

​Lay persons and secular priests can accomplish it quite easily.

Prime (without the martyrology), Terce, Sext and None should take at most 10 minutes.  Lauds and Vespers should usually be about 20 minutes at most, respectively.  Compline should be 15 minutes (including a chanted final antiphon).  Matins should take 30 minutes to 40 minutes and most secular priests anticipated Matins and even Lauds the night before after saying Compline.  The rosary should only take you about 15-20 minutes a chaplet, daily Mass should take about 30-45 minutes without a sermon (assuming a 1962 Low Mass).  Most spiritual authors recommend 15 minutes to 30 minutes of devotional reading and mental prayer a day.  And remember, for priests, the Divine Office is their full time job.  For those of us in the world, whether laity or secular priest, we just need to keep balance.